A Source of Empowerment!
Willie Mays was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in a time when segregation was practiced throughout the United States. He was a great athlete, but his skin was the wrong color. For that reason, he didn’t get as many opportunities early in his career.
Rickwood Field was home to the Birmingham Black Barons. It is the oldest professional baseball stadium in America! It came to life on Tuesday night, June 19, 2024, when it hosted the first National League baseball game played in Alabama. The purpose was to highlight the accomplishments of the Negro league players. Major league baseball stars attended to pay tribute to a lot of people who never received a lot of recognition.
Willie Mays went on to become a great player. He had enough talent and a lot of opportunities to be one of the first blacks to integrate into major league baseball. He was a star.
Rickwood Field gave Willie Mays an opportunity to play baseball. He never forgot it. He died at age 93 just two days before the great celebration at Rickwood. The big clock at Rickwood is always set to the time of 8:24. Those are the two numbers that Willie Mays wore in baseball—8 and 24.
Willie Mays described Rickwood Field as “a source of empowerment.” He said that it was a place where he was given an opportunity. It was a platform that he and other Negro players could advance to bigger things. About one-half of the baseball Hall of Fame players played at Rickwood!
I love that phrase, “a source of empowerment.” That’s what we ought to call the church today. The church ought to be a place where anybody can come and discover how much God loves them, and the great gifts that God has given them, and give them a place to utilize those gifts. Rickwood did that for baseball players; the church ought to do it for everybody. Churches wouldn’t be dying or declining if they were genuine sources of empowerment!
Rickwood was a place of opportunity. Willie Mays always said that if hadn’t been for Rickwood, he would never have made it into the major leagues. How many young people today have the sense that their church is a source of empowerment—a place of giving them an opportunity? Young people seem to find their “empowerment” in other places—the church ought to be the place.
Rickwood was a place where you had to work hard in order to utilize your gifts. Church is not a place where we sit and soak, but it should be a place where we commit ourselves to serving and growing in utilizing our gifts through disciplined Bible study, prayer, service, and giving our faith away. Evaluate your church by asking if it’s a place of empowerment where people can make commitments to see their gifts used by the Holy Spirit.
While Rickwood is the oldest baseball stadium in America, it has been improved many times. Everybody is impressed with the upgrades to Rickwood Field. This special television debut of the first national league baseball game played in Alabama required a lot of upgrading and change. If the church is going to be effective in today’s world, it can’t be like it was 100 or 10 or even one year ago. God wants to play His biggest game in churches—we need to be sure our churches are open to changes that can enlarge their empowerment possibilities!
Is your church a “source of empowerment?”
